Inside The Bills

Appearing on the Shredd and Ragan show on 103.3 The Edge Tuesday afternoon, Bills GM Buddy Nix was asked about a range of topics including the release of former starting center Geoff Hangartner, who has since signed with Carolina.

Nix gave the following answer.

“Geoff’s a great guy, a great community guy,” he said. “Geoff lacks strength to anchor at the point. If a guy is a back-up center for us, he’s also got to back-up at guard. We have 53 players. When we go into a game 46 of them can play. Seven offensive linemen is what you want. You have one guy that backs up the center and both guards. You have to have a guy who backs up both tackles. In my opinion, Geoff could not do that. So that’s what we did.”

The stat counters and film reviewers at Pro Football Focus have released Part I of their Pass Protection rankings.

They’re going from worst to first and calculated their findings by taking Pressure per play and multiplying it by the average number of pass blockers per play (multiplied by 1,000). Buffalo ranked 20th in the league. Here was their synopsis for the Bills.

20. Buffalo Bills (1.71)Improvement from the Bills. Demetrius Bell isn’t even an average left tackle yet, but he was much better than 2009, and Fred Jackson seemed to finally begin to get what picking up the blitz was all about. But players like Cord Howard still get beat far too often, and the interior is all too readily pushed back. That will need to improve. With Ryan Fitzpatrick still at quarterback they at least have a guy who knows how to avoid sacks.

Pressure Per Play Rank: 21stSack % of Pressure Rank: 12thAverage Number of Blockers Per Play Rank: 19th

It would seem to me that the PFF folks were unaware that though complementary of Bell they did not realize he was coming off microfracture surgery and did not feel back to 100 percent until after the bye week last season. Cordaro Howard was learning on the fly as an undrafted rookie. The comment about the interior makes one wonder about how the center position might shake out from the 2011 season knowing there will be competition there between Geoff Hangartner and Eric Wood.

Bills center Geoff Hangartner will be on the Buffalo airwaves Friday morning.

Hangartner is scheduled to be on 103.3 The Edge on the Morning Bull program beginning at 7 am. A lot of fans are interested in knowing what the Bills are doing to stay sharp. Hangartner might shed some light on that subject so be sure to tune in.

Bills starting center Geoff Hangartner did not dress Sunday against the Patriots despite getting back into the swing of things in practice during the week. By the sound of it he’s got a much better chance of being dressed for this week’s game against the Jets.

“Geoff is getting a lot closer,” said Gailey. “I think there’s maybe a chance. We’re trying be smart about that with it being the last game. Do we want to risk it? We’ll see how it goes this week. I certainly think he’s got a great chance to be active and if we had an emergency he’d certainly give us the best chance to win. But to expose him to a whole ball game I’m not sure about that.”

Judging Gailey’s comment it’s likely that Hangartner will serve in a reserve capacity Sunday and Eric Wood will make his fourth straight start at center.

Hangartner practiced for a second straight day Friday doing a little more than he did the day before. Head coach Chan Gailey said there’s a chance he’ll be active for Sunday’s game against the Patriots.

“We’re going to list him as questionable, but I don’t know if we’ll activate him or not,” said Gailey. “We’ll see.”

Eric Wood is going to start at center on Sunday regardless of whether Hangartner dresses for the game or not. If he does dress it’s expected that Hangartner would serve in a backup role.

Geoff Hangartner was participating in practice for a second straight day, but it doesn’t appear likely that he’ll be returning to the starting lineup.

Eric Wood was still lining up with the first team during individual position drills, with Hangartner working with the second unit. So in all likelihood Hangartner will fill a reserve role on Sunday at best.

Geoff Hangartner returned to practice Thursday, and head coach Chan Gailey is encouraged about his starting center’s outlook moving forward.

“Geoff did a little work in the first part of practice to get back into the swing of things,” said Gailey. “We’ll see toward the end of the week and maybe (he’ll dress), maybe not.”

It’s clear that the Bills aren’t going to rush Hangartner back from his sprained knee, but from the beginning Gailey indicated that Hangartner had a chance to be back after two weeks, and he’s missed each of the last two games.

“I know we’re going to try to be smart, we’re not going to be dumb about it,” said Gailey.

After getting some work on it Thursday, the plan for now is to see how Hangartner feels Friday morning and if he feels good they could have him do a little more in practice Friday. Hangartner was officially listed as a limited participant Thursday.

Bills starting C Geoff Hangartner is dressed for practice for the first time in two weeks.

Hangartner, who suffered a sprained knee against the Vikings in Week 13, hasn’t participated in practice at all until Thursday. During the media-viewing portion of practice he didn’t do a whole lot, but had his helmet and pads on during individual position drills.

The rest of Buffalo’s roster was participating with Chris Kelsay and Demetrius Bell back practicing after getting their Wednesday rest days.

Bills OL Eric Wood played center for the first time in two seasons Sunday and performed admirably against a pair of respectable nose tackles in Ahtyba Rubin and Shaun Rogers. But his play was fully anticipated to be that good by Buffalo’s coaching staff.

“Eric did a nice job. He handled things well,” said Chan Gailey. “I think people were somewhat surprised by that, but we weren’t at all. We fully expected him to go in there and be able to do what he did. That was a nose man that had played pretty well against some people in the past. I thought it was a positive the way he was able to go fill in and play.”

As for starting center Geoff Hangartner, he’s still on the mend, but won’t play in Miami Sunday.

“He’s better,” Gailey said. “He won’t be ready this week. It’s going to be close really the rest of the year on him, but he’s getting better.”

“We’ll have to get somebody up and running for this week whether it’s a guy off our present practice squad, or whether we bring somebody in or both,” he said Monday.

Buffalo has three linemen on their practice squad in G Marc Dile, G/T Chad Rhinehart and G/T Jason Watkins. None of them have experience at the center spot.

But even if the Bills sign a center in free agency, there’s a good chance he would not know Buffalo’s offensive system well enough to step in right away, leaving Wood as the most obvious answer at center.

The centers that were in training camp for the Bills in the summer that are no longer with the team are undrafted rookie Sean Allen and free agent Christian Gaddis. They would at least have knowledge of Buffalo’s system, but three months have passed since the end of camp so it’s hard to determine if there would be interest there.

New Titans receiver Randy Moss might be the original freak, but Bears DE Julius Peppers fits in that category as well according to one of his former Carolina Panthers teammates.

Bills center Geoff Hangartner, who played with Peppers for four seasons in Carolina, said Peppers’ physical ability is elite.

“The guy is a freak, I’ve see him chase guys down field,” said Hangartner. “We were together for four years so I’ve seen him do some pretty amazing things. We were at training camp one day and we were going to weigh in, you’d have to weigh in and out every practice. He gets on the scale in front of me, he weighs 305 and I weighed 303. It’s almost not fair.”

Peppers does not have his typical sack numbers, but he is getting pressure on opposing passers which has led to hurried and errant throws leading to nine interceptions and 12 forced fumbles. Bills head coach Chan Gailey explains why Peppers doesn’t have his the sack stats expected of him to this point and added that they’ll be taking a similar approach to some of Chicago’s prior opponents.

“The reason he hasn’t had sack numbers is because everybody’s double-teaming him and chipping him and turning the line that way,” said Gailey. “That’s why he hasn’t had [the sack numbers]. He is an amazing football player – a great, great talent. We’re going to do that same thing by the way.”

He’s listed as questionable after being unable to practice on Friday. Head coach Chan Gailey downplayed Moorman’s ailment which is listed as a back.

“Brian had a little issue this morning and missed practice,” said Gailey. “But it shouldn’t be anything.”

It was clear that Gailey did not anticipate it being anything that would keep Moorman from playing on Sunday. If he were unable to go however, it’s presumed that Rian Lindell would assume punting duties.

The news is better for starting C Geoff Hangartner (ankle) and starting LB Reggie Torbor (chest). Both are listed as probable for Sunday. Torbor practiced fully all week.

FS Cary Harris was declared out for Sunday with a hamstring injury as was Paul Posluszny (knee). Rookie LB Antonio Coleman is probable after practicing all week.